2023 Bremen state election

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 36 political advertisers in Bremen during the 2023 Bremen state election to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (May 6th - May 12th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (Apr 13th - May 12th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

Apr 13th - May 12th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €46,503 and ran 1150 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

FDP

5


1. FDP Bremen (€5,526)
2. Tobias Huch (€1,558)
3. FDP Bremerhaven (€618)

734

€8,020

CDU

8


1. CDU Bremen (€2,870)
2. CDU Schwachhausen - Bremen (€1,827)
3. Jörg Müller-Arnecke (€669)

71

€6,490

DIE LINKE

1


1. DIE LINKE Land Bremen (€6,355)

21

€6,355

DIE GRUENEN

2


1. Grüne Bremen (€5,685)
2. GRÜNE JUGEND Bremen (€352)

19

€6,037

Volt

1


1. Volt Bremen (€5,711)

85

€5,711

SPD

13


1. SPD Land Bremen (€3,352)
2. SPD Bremen-Stadt (€500)
3. Jusos Bremen (€377)

114

€5,650

BIW

2


1. BÜRGER IN WUT Bremen/Bremerhaven (€3,017)
2. Piet Leidreiter (€2,091)

52

€5,108

dieBasis

1


1. IIIIdieBasis (€2,375)

50

€2,375

Tierschutzpartei

1


1. LV Bremen - Tierschutzpartei (€757)

4

€757

May 6th - May 12th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €23,089 and ran 613 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

DIE GRUENEN

2


1. Grüne Bremen (€3,260)
2. GRÜNE JUGEND Bremen (€169)

11

€3,429

DIE LINKE

1


1. DIE LINKE Land Bremen (€3,333)

20

€3,333

SPD

13


1. SPD Land Bremen (€1,556)
2. SPD Bremen-Stadt (€200)
3. Recai Aytas (€183)

61

€2,965

FDP

4


1. FDP Bremen (€2,269)
2. FDP Bremerhaven (€271)
3. Tobias Huch (€195)

368

€2,835

CDU

6


1. CDU Bremen (€1,319)
2. CDU Schwachhausen - Bremen (€764)
3. Jörg Müller-Arnecke (€261)

41

€2,693

BIW

2


1. BÜRGER IN WUT Bremen/Bremerhaven (€1,372)
2. Piet Leidreiter (€1,204)

22

€2,576

Volt

1


1. Volt Bremen (€2,493)

38

€2,493

dieBasis

1


1. IIIIdieBasis (€2,347)

49

€2,347

Tierschutzpartei

1


1. LV Bremen - Tierschutzpartei (€418)

3

€418

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

Apr 13th - May 12th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Overall

By Party

May 6th - May 12th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Overall

By Party

Top Targeted (Detailed) Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party for the “detailed” targeting that Meta offers (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

Apr 13th - May 12th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 6th - May 12th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

Apr 13th - May 12th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 6th - May 12th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

Apr 13th - May 12th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 6th - May 12th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

Apr 13th - May 12th 2023 (Last 30 days)

May 6th - May 12th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

Apr 13th - May 12th 2023 (Last 30 days)